


And carried on

by InvertedPhantasmagoria



Category: Bleach
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bathing/Washing, Caretaking, Character Death Fix, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hollows are miserable, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Torture, Inspired By Tumblr, Mental Breakdown, Mental Instability, Minor Injuries, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Panic Attacks, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Purring Hollows, Reader-Insert, Survival, What-If, mild xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 19:50:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21276749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InvertedPhantasmagoria/pseuds/InvertedPhantasmagoria
Summary: It doesn’t take you long to find him.You’re not far from the lab at all when you turn a corner toward a small, deserted hallway, where it’s dark and hidden and closed-off.Slumped against a pillar is a very familiar form.. . .A "what-if" exploring what could have happened if Szayel had survived his fight with Mayuri. Reader-insert, because what else do I do?





	And carried on

**Author's Note:**

> Yayyyy another long fic!! This one is another commission from my tumblr, and one that I had a lot of fun working on! It's similar to my Yylfordt and Szayel fic in a lot of ways, but still definitely stands as its own thing. There's a lot of broken Szayel, concerned Reader, and just general angst. Surprisingly, nothing is particularly graphic, and I don't have any warnings beyond the usual Szayel stuff and the mentions of the Superhuman drug. For as long as this turned out to be, I really don't have much to say. Oh, and as a final note, the relationship between Szayel and Reader could be interpreted as either platonic or romantic, but it's meant to be ambiguous :3
> 
> arrancxr.tumblr.com

The Shinigami come to Las Noches. In some ways, you feel like it’s something that’s needed to happen for a while now. In others, you wish it never had. The main thing that worries you is what will happen to Szayel, followed closely by the worry of what will happen to everyone else. 

As an Espada, Szayel has to fight. There’s no choice in it, whether you like it or not. Szayel is going to have to fight, and you know you’ll have nothing to do but sit by in the deepest recesses of his personal quarters and pray that he comes back alive. It’s a terrifying prospect. If you knew it would get you anywhere, you’d beg for him to stay with you instead. 

You don’t want to lose someone you’re close to. You know,  _ know  _ that the Shinigami and the humans and the Arrancar and everyone else have, but that doesn’t mean you want it any more than they do. You’re selfish too. 

Szayel promises you that he’ll be alright. He insists that a perfect being such as himself could never lose to mere Shinigami. He smirks with all the confidence that you expect from him, sounding arrogant and carefree. You warn him to be careful, to not underestimate someone and get killed. 

You don’t think he really listens. 

Just as you were expecting, you get shut up in Szayel’s personal quarters for ‘safekeeping’. There shouldn’t be any fighting here, he says. You’ll be safe if you stay exactly where he leaves you. 

It sounds reasonable. You  _ are  _ just a fragile little human, no matter how much you wish you could do something to protect him too. 

Szayel locks the door to his room behind him, leaving you there with a final promise to win. You wish he’d promised to be safe instead, but there are a lot of things you wish. You’re alone with nothing to do until when–  _ if _ – Szayel gets back. Szayel’s room is as dark and cold and artificial as anything else in the world of Hollows, even if you have made attempts to the contrary. There are real blankets on the bed and a space heater in the corner of the room, all things that you drug in from the human world. 

Small comforts, sure, but the look on Szayel’s face when you turned the heater on for the first time made everything worth it. Hollows don’t get nice things when they’re left on their own, which is exactly why you can’t leave Szayel alone. This kind of thing is the way you can do something to take care of him. This is your only means of being able to protect him. 

You settle yourself on the bed with one of the more recent books Szayel’s stolen for you from your world. You try to read, even as the words start blurring across the page. You try to read even as you start to hear distant sounds from outside. Worrying, worrying sounds. 

The noises only get louder the longer you wait, what sounds like distant explosions shaking the room like mini-earthquakes. You’re not scared for yourself, but you are scared for those who have to fight. 

You stay in Szayel’s room until the noise dies down. It feels like forever. You have the feeling it’s been merely a few hours. 

Things quiet after a while, but Szayel doesn’t come back. You sit there for even longer, long enough that you have to dig some food out of the little stash kept mostly for you, but he still doesn’t come back. There are no more battle-sounds anywhere close to you, if at all, but he still doesn’t come back. 

There are a few things you can conclude from this. The first; Szayel lost his fight, or fights, and won’t ever be coming back. The second; Szayel won or barely won his fights, but can’t make it back for whatever reason. The third, something happened that doesn’t fit into either of the above. None of the options are particularly good. You think that now is the time when you should start to be worried. You’re already getting scared. 

That fear turns to determination within the next few minutes. 

You have to do something. The fighting is done by now, it has to be. You’re being a stupid, stupid human and you know it, but you’re about to do something ridiculously inadvisable. You’re about to go find Szayel. 

Knowing that there might be very little you can do, you slip out of Szayel’s room. Nervousness pooling in your gut, you slink through the inner areas of Szayel’s lab, the parts so shut off that nothing would ever reach them without Szayel himself taking it there. Those parts are mostly untouched, but once you get out into the main areas, you’re crushed to find that they’re in utter ruins. Most of what you can see is destroyed to some degree, even the various specimens either missing or torn to pieces. 

Even though you want to be angry for Szayel’s sake, for the sake of all of his hard work, you press on. You get outside of Szayel’s labs altogether, and out into the main halls of Las Noches. There are a lot of things that are cracked, smashed, or otherwise ruined. You see spatters of blood here and there as you walk, but no corpses. You can be grateful for that. 

Unable to sense reiatsu like the Arrancar can, you have no choice but to wander blindly. You decide quickly that isolated areas are probably your best bet. If Szayel  _ is  _ injured, he’s going to want to hide. 

It doesn’t take you long to find him. 

You’re not far from the lab at all when you turn a corner toward a small, deserted hallway, where it’s dark and hidden and closed-off. 

Slumped against a pillar is a very familiar form. 

Szayel is curled up in the shadow of the pillar, his uniform shredded to the point where it’s barely a large strip of fabric covering him. He’s not particularly bloody, and that’s what worries you. Why isn’t he  _ moving?  _

You approach cautiously, afraid of what you might find. When you get closer, Szayel slowly, slowly looks up. You were expecting sharp movements and panic, but instead, he moves like he’s drugged.

Very slowly, Szayel tips his head up to look at you. He seems sluggish, weighed down, like something is causing him to move in all but slow-motion. His gold eyes are painfully wide, his jaw is half-slack, and the only thing you can really be grateful for here is that his mask seems to be intact. As if he’s incapable of moving at any speed faster than cautious stillness, Szayel twitches, then starts to curl in on himself, shuddering under your gaze. 

“Oh no,” you say, because that’s the only thing that’s really coming to mind right now. Because it’s all that seems quite fitting. “Oh  _ no _ .” 

Szayel doesn’t respond. Instead, he flinches in a way that you’re pretty sure is instinctive, even if it does seem slowed down. Considering  _ Szayel,  _ the best guess you really have here is that he’s been drugged with something. This is as good a place as any to start guessing, but it also doesn’t tell you anything about what you need to do. 

You kneel down next to Szayel, trying to move slowly too. You definitely don’t want to scare him more. ‘Scared’ is a weird concept on every level to be associating with the arrogant scientist you’re used to, and yet, here you are, staring right at a Szayel that can only be described as  _ terrified.  _ You don’t know what to do with this. Seeing the look of utter fear in his eyes is really just starting to make you feel frightened too. 

But you don’t have time to be worrying about your own feelings. No, you have to get Szayel somewhere safe before the Shinigami come back.  _ If  _ the Shinigami come back. You don’t know what could happen now. 

When you move to get your arms under Szayel’s shoulders, he flinches again,  _ hard.  _ A small, miserable little noise leaves him, but he, fortunately, doesn’t do anything to try to struggle. You remember with much trepidation that this man is a  _ lot  _ stronger than you are. 

“Okay, Szayel. I’m going to move you. Please,  _ please  _ don’t try to hurt me. I’ll get you somewhere safe, alright? We’re gonna be okay.”

A lot of it is empty hope. You don’t know what’s wrong with Szayel yet. There are a thousand possibilities for what could have happened to them, and you might not know until it’s too late. Swallowing heavily, you watch how Szayel tries to squirm. He’s still acting drugged and out of it, but fortunately, that means he’s not doing much to fight you. 

Somehow, you manage to move him. Szayel is taller than you by quite a bit, but he’s also worryingly thin. Even as dead weight, he’s a lot lighter than you really want to think about. At first, Szayel twitches and flinches and lets out a few pained, terrified noises, but he goes quiet and limp pretty quickly. Unconscious. He passes out while you’re moving him, probably from fear, and that thought alone makes you feel a good portion more sick. 

It’s worryingly easy to get Szayel back to the lab. No one interrupts you, no one finds you. There’s not a trace of Shinigami to be found. 

By the time Szayel is inside his lab again, you’re calming down a bit. It doesn’t seem like there’s anyone else around, which could be both good or very bad, but at least it means you shouldn’t be disturbed. Without the Shinigami around, you should be fairly safe. Even if that’s a relative concept, it might buy you the time you need to get Szayel back to normal. 

The first thing you have to do is get Szayel situated. You get him moved back to his personal quarters, in the deepest areas of the lab where he’d left  _ you  _ for safekeeping. As unpleasant as Las Noches as a whole is, you’ve taken measures to make his room at least a little bit comfortable. You settle the still fairly-bloody Szayel into the single bed, pulling up every blanket you can get ahold of. Hollows like small, enclosed spaces where they can hide. That’s one of many things you’ve picked up in your time with Szayel, and one that you can definitely use to your advantage. 

From there, once Szayel looks decently comfortable in the case he’ll wake up, you get moving to seal off the lab. Szayel has already taught you all necessary defense procedures, coded your reiatsu signal into every bit of the operating system, made sure that you know exactly what to do in emergencies like this. You know what you’re doing, at least sort of. 

A few activations later, and the lab is properly sealed. With all the traps you’ve primed, you don’t imagine anyone will be getting in any time soon. You should be safe for now. You should have some time. 

From there, it’s a matter of setting up. You need to get things together; food, water, medical supplies, and anything else you might need. You need to make at least some effort to clean up the outer areas of the lab, just in case you need something from them that you can’t find. 

It still pains you to see all of Szayel’s hard work ruined. As hard as it is to understand what all is going on in his organized-chaos mess of strange substances and stranger equipment, Szayel has done at least something to teach you about what he does. You’ve always appreciated just how brilliant he is. Even if some of his experiments are cruel, the genius still stands. 

You busy yourself with getting your things together, hoping dearly that when Szayel does wake up, the aftermath won’t be too terrible. 

Whatever happened to him, whatever you’re going to have to clean up the pieces of, you’re going to need to be ready. And you’re probably going to hate every single Shinigami by the end of it. 

. . . 

It’s a while before Szayel wakes up. You spend a good few hours cleaning, returning to his room every so often to make sure nothing’s happened. You have plenty of time to think, which winds up just making you more nervous. What if Szayel  _ doesn’t _ wake up? What if whatever’s in him is slow-acting enough that it’s just going to kick in late?

Eventually, you get sick of cleaning. Looking at the mess is just making you feel bad for Szayel’s sake. So much hard work is just  _ gone.  _ You’re also hitting a point where you don’t know what things are safe to touch anymore, so taking a break is probably a wise idea for now. 

You settle into Szayel’s room, huddling up on the floor beside the bed with the last blanket and a small stash of snacks to occupy yourself with. You grab a book too, because sitting with nothing but your worries to think about is an absolutely horrible idea. You sit there, watching Szayel for a few long minutes, hoping that his eyes will flutter open, that he’ll wake up and everything will go back to the way it was. Like it could be that easy. 

Szayel’s features are tense, twisted up in what’s probably pain. It’s a sign that he’s alive, which is a good thing, but also a sign that nothing very good is happening. There’s a cold sweat on his brow, and even his body is trying to curl up into a very small ball, just like you’d expect from a Hollow. 

It’s a nerve-wracking sight. You hate to see someone you’ve always thought of as strong in such a state, especially when the only one and only thing that can help him is you. And that’s  _ if  _ you can do anything to help. 

. . . 

Szayel comes back to awareness just as slowly as he’d expect. Even with his eyes closed, the world is spinning in slow-motion. Whatever that filthy Shinigami scientist had drugged him with is surely still in his system. He almost doesn’t dare to open his eyes and find out how badly. 

He feels sick. Without even opening his eyes, he feels absolutely sick. Trying to move sounds like the worst idea his mind has ever conceived. 

Laying there for what feels like a few minutes, but is probably only milliseconds, Szayel debates the merits of actually trying to do something. As horrendous as he feels, he’s still in danger. The last he remembered, he was collapsed out in the halls of Las Noches, and– and– there are still  _ Shinigami  _ around. There are still a thousand things that could kill him. If he doesn’t get himself together and  _ hide,  _ he’s going to be very, very dead. 

Szayel groans, feeling himself shaking. His eyes slit open, panic filling every vein as he recognizes that he’s not where he remembers being. This is bad. This is very bad. The world is too blurry for him to tell exactly where he is, but surely, surely he’s been captured and laid out on that Shinigami’s dissection table. It would be just his luck that they’d keep him alive for it all. 

Everything blurs, spins on its axis. Szayel almost thinks  _ like he’s drugged _ , then remembers in a fog that he is. His whole body hurts, the dull, aching pain of old poison flowing through his skin and bones. 

When the world does clear a bit, it’s to someone standing over him. Szayel flinches, feels himself whine, body twitching in slow-motion as he tries to curl up and get away. Nothing is moving properly, even now. 

Whoever is above him says something Szayel can’t make out past the fog over his vision and the rush in his ears. His senses are all askew, distorting his perception of everything that’s around him in a way that, by all means, should get him killed. If this keeps up, it  _ will.  _

There are lights on overhead, brilliant, shining much too bright. They’re burning his eyes, searing them straight out of the sockets even just slitted. Szayel can’t get enough air past the glaring brightness and the rush of voices, of his own breathing, slowed down quarter-time in his chest. His chest heaves, still feeling much too slow, like he’s never going to get enough air. His fingers twitch, his eyelids slowly squeeze shut, and Szayel is certain that this is the dissection table he dies on, medical lights shining down over his head as the Shinigami cut into his abdomen and poke at what’s inside. 

Szayel groans, followed by a noise that’s almost a whimper. The person above him sounds vaguely familiar, but that can’t be. 

He doesn’t want to die like this. 

The light and sound around him quickly become too much. As if they weren’t already. There’s no pain yet, but Szayel is spread out and vulnerable and ready to be sliced open and examined like one of his own specimens. 

He tries to curl in, even when the world is slowed to a crawl around him. Thankfully, oh-so thankfully, there aren’t any restraints weighing down his limbs. Szayel should recognize that there’s something off about that, but right now, he’s much more preoccupied with getting the vital parts of his chest and belly covered where no one can hurt them. 

The world is still spinning. Even with his eyes closed again, everything is twisting on a horrible axis, still too slow to be real. Szayel feels blood in his throat, seeping in around his hands, but realizes just as quickly that he hasn’t felt a thing. He’s dreaming. He’s hallucinating. He’s dying. 

Szayel prays to go back to sleep, to vanish back into the black spaces of his mind where none of this can touch him. Perhaps, if he goes deep enough, not even the living-or-not nightmares can touch him. 

To the sound of his own breath rattling through his chest, to the mysterious flow of blood through his veins, Sayel returns to the black.

. . . 

Szayel’s first few moments awake again qualified as truly horrifying. He was only semi-lucid for a few minutes, but it was enough for you to tell that a lot had gone wrong. Whatever the Shinigami did to him, he seemed fractured, damaged in a way you never thought someone like him could be. 

You sit next to Szayel’s beside, trying not to feel sick. Just  _ watching  _ that little display made you nauseous down to your core. Szayel had looked at you with bleary eyes, terror visibly evident, as if you were the one who’d done this to him. As if he thought you were going to do something so much worse. He’d curled in on himself in a way that you know to be a panic response in Hollows, hiding his chest and belly like he thought something was going to rip them open. He’s still curled up. His breath is still too short.

The little noises Szayel had made had broken your heart. Looking at his face, tensed up with fear even while he’s asleep somehow hurts even more. You never would have imagined Szayel being afraid of you until now.

But there’s not much you can do. It’s been a few hours since those horrible moments of awareness, and you’ve still found nothing you can do but sit around and pray that you’ll be able to fix something. Szayel is still asleep and dead to the world, and you’re starting to think it’s better that way. At least he’s not aware enough to be afraid of anything. 

_ You’re  _ afraid too. You’re scared on a thousand levels, scared that Szayel is going to be shattered beyond repair when he does wake up. 

On impulse, you reach out a hand, run gentle fingers through the matted pink fluff of Szayel’s hair. It’s soft, even crusted with dried sweat and traces of blood. Knowing how Szayel hates to be dirty, you want to imagine that he’ll be asking for a bath before long, perhaps when he wakes up again. 

But you’re smart enough to know that that isn’t going to happen. 

Before long, though, Szayel’s eyelids start to flutter once again. He’s waking up. You pray,  _ pray  _ that you might see some awareness this time, something beyond panic and fear and blind terror clouding his eyes. 

Szayel twitches, fingers clenching in the sheets. His gold eyes slide open, clearer than before. Your heart leaps. This is progress. 

“Wha– wh-where...?” Szayel mumbles, voice dry, cracked, and worryingly weak. You resist the urge to grab his hand and start crying. The relief you’re feeling is palpable. He might actually be okay. 

“It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re back in your lab, in your room, and no one’s here but me. Nothing is going to hurt you.” You speak slowly, clearly, trying to make sure that your words get through properly. Szayel blinks a few times as you talk, swallowing. You can’t imagine how dry his mouth must be. You really don’t know how Hollows survive like this on their own. 

Szayel doesn’t respond. His gaze begins to trail away, following some invisible point on the far wall. That’s... worrying. You don’t know how you’re supposed to respond to that, other than to carry on and hope that things will be okay. You started cleaning Szayel up while he was still unconscious; you’d gotten his destroyed uniform off of him and cleaned up some of the blood before deciding that you were kind of violating his personal space. You didn’t find any injuries beyond the superficial and shallow, anyway. 

“Are you hurting? Your wounds aren’t very deep, but I don’t know what’s happened to you. Do I need to do anything?” You don’t know how much good asking is going to go, but you need to try anyway. 

Szayel makes a faint noise that could be considered affirmative. His eyes are still open, which is a good thing, but he also still looks horribly unfocused. You suppose that you’re not going to get any more permission than that. It’s probably better that he’s awake for this anyway. 

“Okay. First, I’m going to get you dressed. I know it’s cold in here, and... I know you wouldn’t like staying like that anyway.” Szayel and his modesty issues are one thing, but it  _ is  _ fucking freezing in his room. 

You stand up, noting with worry that Szayel’s gaze doesn’t follow you. After finding an oversized– even for him– shirt that will do for now, you sit back down, trying to figure out how you’re going to do this. Right now, you can see every skinny, sharp line of Szayel’s torso; concave stomach, barely outlined abs, visible ribs, and the dark void of his Hollow hole low on his abdomen. He’s still sort of scratched up, but he seems to be healing well. 

You’re glad beyond measure that no harm came to the most delicate parts of him. A wound to the Hollow hole could hurt worse than anything, aching for months even after it heals on the outside. Damage to the mask might be even worse. You know what happened to the former Third. 

Szayel finches when you try to touch him. He jerks hard, vision suddenly snapping back onto you. He gulps hard enough that you can see his throat bob, hands shaking where they still grip the sheets. 

“Easy. Not gonna hurt you. All I’m doing is getting you a little warmer. Nothing’s gonna hurt.” The thing that hurts is seeing Szayel so scared. 

Eventually, you decide that it’s better to bite the bullet. Rushing maybe a bit more than you should, you get the shirt over Szayel’s head while he’s still dazed and pliant. It’s better than if or when panic sets in. 

After adjusting the fabric to cover as much of Szayel’s uncomfortably thin body as possible, you step back. That’s... That’s progress. Even though he’s still bruised and scraped, even though he’s still in major need of a bath, Szayel looks worlds better cleaned up and dressed. And hopefully warmer. 

“Y-You...” Szayel gets out suddenly, dragging you back to attention. “Wh-What...? I... I’m... a-alive?” Oh. Oh no. You don’t like that line at all. 

“Y-Yep. You are very much alive. And staying that way. You’re safe back in your lab, everything is sealed off, and nothing is going to hurt you. It’s just me here. I don’t know if you recognize me yet, but it’s me.” You talk as slowly as you can. Szayel’s speech is still dragged out, like everything is moving a bit too fast for him to keep up. Forcing yourself to move a little slower might do some good, even with as little as you can guess.

With a sigh, Szayel goes a bit more limp against the blankets. His gaze is still horribly unfocused, and he’s still eying a spot on the ceiling like it might attack him, but he seems to be sort of okay. Hopefully. Maybe. You can pray that he is, anyway, and pray you fully intend to. 

“Um, anyway, you probably need some kind of pain medication, right? I don’t really know what happened to you, but I’m sure you have something here that could help...? If you can say what you need, I can get it.”

Szayel doesn’t respond for a minute. His eyes follow that same point on the ceiling until they suddenly snap back to something resembling attention. He blinks once, twice, then slowly tips his head towards you. He stares at you for a long moment, one hand fiddling with the sleeve of his shirt, all before a strange expression crosses his face. 

“N-No... n-no med... medication...  _ please. _ ” 

Just as quickly, Szayel starts to look very, very scared. You’re seconds away from backtracking, from promising that you absolutely won’t offer anything again when you notice that his short, blunt nails have started to dig into his skin. Szayel claws at one arm hard enough to draw blood. His eyes slowly go wider, a shiver starting up in his shoulders and his free hand. You get the message very quickly that you said something wrong. 

“Okay, nothing, got it. I won’t do anything, so–” You cut yourself off. Szayel ducks down into himself, curling up tighter. Lines of red pool under his nails. A long stream of disturbingly quiet, incoherent muttering pours out of him so quickly you can’t do a thing to make out the words. 

This doesn’t look good. Szayel’s barely been awake for five minutes again and he’s already slipping back into what’s starting to look worryingly like madness. His muttering kicks up another notch. You have to act. 

Quickly, you stand, rushing over to grab something you’d brought in just in case this happened. Something Szayel himself prepared. 

A high-grade sedative, strong enough to quiet even an Arrancar. The needle is capable of piercing Hierro, and the drug itself was designed in case of exactly this kind of emergency. Szayel had given it to you to for exactly this kind of situation, for a time where he’d be a threat to you or himself. 

Keeping the syringe as far out of sight as you can, you step closer to Szayel, making sure to go slowly. He’s moved his other hand to his hair now, tearing out small chunks of pink at the same time he’s clawing bloody lines into his arm. His muttering is getting louder. You can make out words about a drug, about a Shinigami, about little bits and pieces of a fight you don’t think you ever want to fully comprehend. Szayel sounds like he’s lost a few important pieces in his head, like something has really been broken. 

As soon as you get close enough to bring out the sedative, Szayel catches sight of it. He jolts, a high noise of terror leaving his throat as his body moves on its own to back quickly away. He jerks back so sharply that he almost falls out of the bed. You catch his arm just in time. This might end badly. Even so, the lines of blood running down Szayel’s arm are proof enough that you need to do something to step in. 

“Easy. I’m not going to hurt you,” you try to soothe. “I have to do this. All it’s going to do is help you calm down. Nothing will hurt.”

As much as you hate to do it, you understand that you need to move quickly. All at once, you grab Szayel’s hand, inserting the needle with practiced precision and sliding the plunger down. Szayel yelps at the sudden prick, but you doubt it’s from the pain. He still acts like he’s seeing someone else. He still acts like he expects to be killed at any second. 

Szayel rips himself away from the needle, staring at you with wide, wild eyes, a small trail of blood runs down his hand from the torn-open wound. Fortunately, you were fast enough to inject the whole thing. 

You’re very, very glad that you’d prepared that dose ahead of time. You had a feeling that something like this would wind up happening. 

Almost immediately, Szayel starts to look very, very dizzy. His chest heaves up and down, almost hyperventilating, but his eyes quickly go half-lidded. His shivering slows, and before you know it, he’s leaning back against the pillows like every string holding him up has been cut. 

Okay. This is where you need to step in all over again. And this time, hopefully not scare Szayel too badly. Setting the syringe down on the side table where you know Szayel can see it, you ease yourself up on the bed beside him. Szayel eyes you frantically, like he’s seeing someone totally different, but the drug coursing through his system prevents any more than a brief bolt of panic. You can deal with that. You can help. This is one area where you can truly trust yourself to do know what to do. 

“There we go. Doesn’t that feel better?.” With one hand, you brush Szayel’s bangs out of his face, letting your fingers graze his unnaturally cool forehead. “You’ll be alright. You just need to rest and heal up.”

As expected, Szaye shivers at the touch, eyelids drooping. His head lolls to the side when you comb your fingers through his hair. He’s too far gone to try to curl up and hide his vulnerable parts again. You pull the blankets up to cover his stomach and chest; a poor attempt to give his instincts some reprieve. Perhaps it’ll help even a little bit. 

Next, you take Szayel’s hand– the one with the needle wound– in yours. You stroke your fingers along the sharp tendons on the back of it, tracing invisible lines over the thin skin. The breath that Szayel lets out seems almost painful, his body going abruptly limp.

He’s giving up. He’s letting himself be taken by the sedative, letting himself relax. You stroke nonsense paths on Szayel’s hand; trailing along his palm, his long, graceful fingers, the sensitive inner curve of his wrist just to give him something to focus on. The contact is grounding, comforting. You know how much Hollows need it. While it’s impossible to know what’s going on in his head, you can hope that the tenderness does some good. 

Szayel passes back out quickly. The sedative takes full hold of him, and he slips into a clutching sleep. The moment you see him fully relax is pure relief. At least  _ something  _ is working in your favor. 

. . . 

Time passes. You spend a while longer hovering by Szayel’s bedside, worrying and fixing whatever you can. He wakes up a couple more times, still far from lucid, and you do your best to manage them. You don’t offer any medicine again. Nothing too terrible happens. The look in his eyes is still haunting, but there isn’t any more panic to the degree of before. 

It’s about a day, by your rough estimate, before Szayel wakes up again properly. You’ve been busy taking care of yourself, cleaning up the lab as best you can, and trying to keep things ready for when you expected him to be awake and somewhat aware again. 

This time, he wakes up when you’re not there. You’re out in the lab, trying to organize what you hope are mostly intact bottles of strange solutions, and when you get back, Szayel is sitting up and staring at you. 

You flinch. You’ll admit you do. You almost drop what you’re holding, too, but that’s of very little importance when he looks  _ lucid.  _

. . .

Szayel wakes up in a place that he recognizes. There’s lights on above him, but they don’t hurt quite as badly as before. He realizes, slowly, that he’s not strapped down to a dissection table with Shinigami hovering above him ready to make the first cut. His situation isn’t even close to that. 

No, he’s in a bed;  _ his  _ bed. The one that you made sure was as comfortable as a raised sleeping surface could possibly be for a Hollow. There are so many blankets around him that Szayel can barely tell where one starts and another ends, and he’s wearing a particularly warm, familiar shirt that hangs loose on his skinny shoulders, baring his collarbone. There’s nothing wrong. Nothing hurts. There’s a pounding in his head, the world still seems to be hovering in slow motion, but nothing is wrong with his body. 

At least, that he can feel. 

But then, the memories of the Shinigami come crashing back. Szayel gags, curling forward on instinct. He remembers what it feels like to be helpless. He remembers how close he came to being a specimen. 

Panic surges hot through Szayel’s veins. If he had a heart, he thinks it would be pounding far too quickly, far too hard. There’s a rush of blood in his ears, his limbs won’t stop shaking, and still, nothing is moving at quite the speed it should. The drug is still in his system, he realizes with horror. 

But– But he’s in his territory. He’s somewhere that only he and you should have access to, and vaguely, Szayel remembers being told that he’s safe. It’s not enough. There’s no way he’s truly emerged unscathed.

And then, after what feels like seconds but is probably closer to minutes, you’re there, standing in the doorway and staring at him. 

“I... I’m alive,” is the first thing to make it out of his mouth. It feels like a miracle. It feels like a lie. There’s no way he could really be alive and well, safe in his own territory with you right beside him. “It’s not... I’m really here...?” The words still aren’t coming out quite right. You make a face like you’re very, very worried, then cross the room to sit beside him. Szayel barely sees you move. Szayel barely cares that he can’t. 

“Yeah. You’re okay, I think. There’s... I found you. I brought you back here, and no one’s even set off the traps.” You say it like it’s easy. Like it’s simple. Like he really is safe. Szayel doesn’t know if he wants to cry or laugh or curl up into a little ball and not think about the world for a while. 

“I’m alive,” he says again. Like it needs to be confirmed. A laugh bubbles up on his lips the next second, half-hysterical. “Y-You saved me. A human saved me. A human saved me from being a specimen jar! That’s–  _ That’s– _ ” More words come after that. Szayel can’t quite keep track of them. They keep spilling up, one after another, pouring out of him until he notices that you’re looking deeply concerned. Even then, he can’t stop. He’s rambling, chanting the same few phrases over and over between a tangle of nonsense that only barely registers in his own head. 

The words keep coming. You look more and more concerned. Szayel thinks, distantly, that he should stop. He’s humiliating himself. But every time he closes his eyes, he can see the face of the Shinigami that almost killed him, and that’s enough to leave him needing something to fill the space between silences. The spaces where everything is too slow.

You reach for him. Szayel flinches on instinct, even as he knows that it’s utterly pathetic. The words die in his throat, and immediately, the quiet is suffocating. Everything slows to a crawl all over again. 

“Calm down,” you say, trying to make it sound like it’s easy. “It’s over, Szayel. You can let yourself relax. There’s nothing here to hurt you.”

As always, you know exactly what to say. Under any other circumstances, words like those would have touched at just the right things to drag him back to reality. Now, when the thing to be afraid of is in his own head, Szayel doubts that anything will be fixed so easily. 

You’re looking at him with fear in your eyes. Not of him, maybe, but for him. Szayel has never felt quite so pathetic as he does now, and yet, he can’t  _ stop.  _ His hands are shaking. His mouth is dry. The taste of blood and poison coats his tongue. He’s scaring you badly enough that you feel the need to pacify him like some kind of frightened animal. 

When your hand covers his, Szayel jolts. He didn’t even see it coming. As always, your skin is soft and human-warm. It’s almost grounding. 

When the world starts to spin on its axis, Szayel gives up. Things are moving where they shouldn’t be, and for all he’s drugged plenty of people into states like this, having it happen to him is a new kind of horror altogether. Szayel can’t stand it. Everything is still too slow. He’s hovering on the edge of being right back with the Shinigami, and if only the damn drug would leave his system, he might return to something like normal. 

Ignoring how it makes you flinch, Szayel flops back down against the pillows behind him. He can’t stand being awake for this. He’s miserable and his dignity is being crushed into a thousand little pieces. The walls are moving again. You’re seeing every little tremble he makes. 

. . . 

Over the next couple of days, things get better. Sort of. Szayel doesn’t do much but sleep or lay curled up and doing nothing but staring off into space. You can’t figure out what’s happening with him, and you’re honestly too scared to ask. There’s something off in Szayel’s head now, something that feels very much beyond the things that you can try to fix. 

Szayel doesn’t talk to you. Every time you get words out him, it’s too short, too choppy. All the energy you’re used to, all the drama and bluster and endless comments about perfection long gone. Szayel spooks at sudden noises. You notice that he’s shaking more often than not. He refuses to eat or leave his blanket nest in the bed. There’s a look in his eyes that can only be described as haunted. There’s no shine left to him. 

“Alright. You need to relax,” you insist, one day when you’re feeling brave. You have to do something. You can’t sit there and watch him rot away to nothing. “Hot shower. Come on. I know you like being warm, and we need to talk anyway.” You take Szayel’s hand and try to smile. 

Without a protest, he moves with you, standing on shaky legs that look impossibly long and thin from underneath the baggy shirt he’s still in. 

Szayel starts shivering again as soon as he’s out in the open air. You guide him back to the bathroom, where you already have the shower running, steam filling the room. Szayel looks at the ground the whole time, like he can’t bear to so much as glance in your direction. He’s getting quieter. You can barely get words out of him anymore. 

You get him into the shower, all the while taking in his thin form with worry. That man needs to  _ eat.  _ You get in next, sitting down under the hot spray about a foot from Szayel, watching for any reaction. 

Between you, nudity doesn’t matter anymore. There’s nothing sexual behind it. The only issue in the first place was trust. Hollows consider bared bodies to be vulnerable, not tempting. It’s a measure of trust that Szayel lets you see his bared stomach, that he lets you this close when he’s at his weakest. You return the gesture to prove that you trust him too. 

“So,” you start when, as expected, Szayel starts to relax from the heat surrounding him. You think you can see his eyes going half-lidded. “What happened? I know you must have been in a fight, but... I don’t know what I need to do to help you. I don’t know how to make this better.”

Szayel flinches hard enough that you can see it. His shoulders hunch up almost to his ears, head dropping down. He still won’t look at you. 

“I... don’t want to remember that.”

Okay. That’s worrying. Whatever could have happened that was bad enough for  _ Szayel  _ to go silent is terrifying on a thousand levels. You have no idea how you’re supposed to get the truth out of him this time. 

“I’m sorry, but I need to know at least some of it. I won’t make you. I can’t make you. But if I’m going to help properly, please tell me. I trust you, and you know you can trust me.” You force a smile, trying to look comforting. You wish you could go for boosting Szayel’s ego like you would have before all of this, but you doubt that would work anymore. 

Sighing, Szayel closes his eyes. “There was a Shinigami, as you’d expect. Another scientist. At first, it was a battle of intelligence, of showing off. Of course, I assumed I would win.” He laughs at that, low and bitter, curling into himself even more. “But then I wasn’t winning anymore. Things went badly, and I came very close to ending up on a dissection table. Or in pieces preserved in formaldehyde. Either way, it wouldn’t have been pleasant. There was a drug in my system that made everything seem to slow, and I don’t think it’s all the way gone yet. That’s it.”

Oh. You have the distinct feeling that Szayel is drastically under-speaking just how bad all of that was, but what he said was worrying on its own. Szayel of all people coming close to winding up as someone’s tes subject... you can see exactly why he’s acting so disturbed. 

That had to have been a hit to his psyche like nothing else. You can’t imagine how afraid he was, alone in Las Noches, assuming that the Shinigami could track him down at any moment, drugged out of his mind and praying that he wouldn’t wind up as the newest addition to someone’s lab. It’s no wonder something got shaken loose during all of that. 

“I’m sorry.” It’s all you can say. It’s all you can think to respond. Just thinking about him suffering like that makes your chest ache. “I can try to help! You’ll get better. It’ll be all in the past, right?”

“It’s over.” Szayel looks up at you, and the raw despair in his eyes is haunting. “I think something is broken now. I can’t think straight. I know my lab is shambles, and my pride has been crushed even worse. It would have been better if you’d left me to die instead of making me live through this.”

Szayel closes his eyes again after that, letting his shoulders drop. Something sick and cold settles in your stomach and clenches there. 

You let Szayel sit under the hot water and steam for a while longer. It might help or it might not, but at least for a few minutes, he doesn’t look quite so tense. That’s the only thing you can really hope for at this point.

But eventually, you have to get him out. Szayel dresses himself this time, slipping into an actual pair of pajamas that you’d brought him from your world months ago. He seems a little less fragile like that, a little less breakable now that he’s in proper clothes. Szayel walks himself back over to the bed, curling into the blankets like he never left in the first place. 

Even so, you notice that his chest is moving just a little too sharply. That the shake in his shoulders has only gotten worse. 

“Hey, Szayel,” you venture, standing beside him, “would you like another dose of the sedative? I know you don’t need it, but it’s something you made and it might make it easier for you to sleep...?” It’s a hesitant question, and when Szayel tenses up a little more, you worry that you really might have said something wrong. But instead of lashing out or ignoring you, Szayel just lets himself go limp against the blankets once again. 

“Just do it. It would be better to not be awake for a while.”

You gulp. That’s sad on a lot of levels, but you can work with it. You fetch a new dose of the sedative, draw it up into a little syringe, and pray that Szayel won’t be quite as frightened of it this time. 

Just as you’re hoping, Szayel gives you his arm willingly. He hisses when you slide the needle into his skin, squeezing his eyes shut in a way that you know means he’s more afraid than he wants to let on. You force yourself to stay calm and get the dose administered properly. 

“Okay. That should be better. Hopefully, you’ll relax a little.” After disposing of the syringe, you sit down beside the bed again, your own posture more than a little anxious. “How do you feel? Is there anything I need to do for you?” You’re worried. You’re a lot worried, and caretaking seems to be the best outlet for that worry that you can find. 

Already, Szayel is looking rather limp. His eyes are back to lidded, his mouth a bit slack. Unconsciously, he nuzzles against a softer blanket just slightly, Hollow instinct taking over as his mind starts to shut down. 

“Y-You...” Szayel starts, looking right at you. “Stay. Here. You s-smell nice... it’s a... s-safe smell.” He’s already drugged out of his mind, but that’s the closest thing to a healthy request Szayel’s made since waking up. The closest thing he’s done to actually ask for some kind of comfort. Your heart clenches. Of all the things a scared, weak, instinct-driven Szayel could ask for, it’s being closer to you. It’s saying that you smell safe.

“Of course. I’ll stay right here. Promise.” As soon as you say it, Szayel goes almost imperceptibly more relaxed. He’s still shaking, but it’s slower, even slightly less tense. He allows his eyes to droop slowly closed. 

And then, in what might be one of your better ideas, you scoot a little closer to Szayel, testing how he’ll react. You’re half-expecting some kind of panic, some kind of instinctive fear at having you so close. Instead, as soon as you dare to reach out and brush the hair off of his cheek, Szayel  _ melts.  _

The sigh that leaves him seems almost painful, but the relief on his face is evident. That reaction makes up your mind in a second. Still hoping that you won’t wind up upsetting Szayel, you slide yourself into the bed right beside him. You’ve done this before; on cold nights and ones filled with the kind of nightmares only Hollows seem to get. Your human warmth next to him has always been something Szayel loves, something that, in some measure, chases the eternal chill of Hueco Mundo from his bones. 

This time, just as you’re hoping, Szayel goes completely limp when you press yourself in behind him. You curl your arms around him, hands resting over the soft parts of his belly in a desperately protective gesture. 

You don’t say anything. You don’t know what you could say. Instead, you bury your face in Szayel’s soft, clean hair, squeezing him a little tighter, as if you could squish all the broken pieces of him right back together. In turn, Szayel snuggles bonelessly back against you. His breathing changes to something almost resembling content. A few minutes more, and you start to hear what you know is a quiet, tentative, hesitant little purr. 

This is the best you can do. Szayel acts like he needs the attention horribly, but it’s something you can  _ do.  _ His skinny body against yours is just as comforting for you as it is for him. Holding him close, assuring yourself that he’s really alive... it’s something you didn’t know you needed. 

Keeping Szayel’s head close enough to your chest that you know he can feel your heartbeat– a comforting thing for Hollows, you’ve learned– you let yourself relax too. After everything that’s happened, you need it too. 

. . . 

From there, things improve, even if slowly. Szayel starts talking more. He’s still worryingly silent compared to what you’re used to, but you can get words out of him that aren’t pure panic or dwelling on his fight. You get him up and around. You get him to eat. You make things sort of better. 

Szayel seems to detest the caretaking on every level, but at the same time, he appears to be all but started for the tenderness. You keep sleeping beside him when he rests, pressing yourself up against his back so he can feel even a little bit safe, giving him the feeling of being guarded from behind from anything that could crawl out of his dreams and hurt him. Considering that you get a shaky, half-scared purr out of him almost every time, you think you do a fairly decent job of comforting him. 

Every time the subject of his lab comes up, though, you dodge as best you can. You know it’ll crush Szayel to see the state all of his hard work has wound up in. You’re afraid of what kind of reaction you’ll get when he does. It could cause another breakdown, if not a full-on shutdown, and for all you’ve tried to fix things while he sleeps, only so much can be done. 

“It’s... not in good shape,” you tell Szayel when he presses to know. The inner areas are sort of okay, but the main lab... isn’t great. I’ve been trying to clean up what I know how to, but I think a lot is beyond repair.” 

You didn’t want to say it, but Szayel had been getting increasingly frantic, demanding to know what had happened to the work he’d poured himself into for years. The look on his face when you finally break the news breaks your heart in return. It’s an expression of such despair, of such resignation that you don’t know how to even start to react. 

“Let me see it,” Szayel says, voice disturbingly steady. “I need to see it. I know that the Shinigami ruined things, but I have to know how badly.”

There’s no way you can refuse him. 

Szayel is up and moving on his own fairly well by now. The world is moving at its proper speed again, apparently, the last of the drug flushed from his system. Residual trauma still makes his legs shaky, still leaves him startling at the smallest of sounds, but Szayel is doing alright. 

So you follow him out to his lab, through the outer areas of his quarters, the innermost sections that are still mostly intact, and then, out into the ruins of everything else he’d worked for for so long. 

As soon as you’re out into the mess, Szayel’s face drops. You can see the exact moment something shatters inside of him. You can see the genuine sadness that creeps onto his features. Eyes scanning the wreck of broken bottles, drying spills, scattered records, and more, Szayel’s shoulders start to drop. He swallows, unable to focus on a single place for long, gaze darting between one mess and another so quickly it hurts. 

“Raided,” he says eventually. “Ransacked. I can tell already. There are things missing. _Too many things._” Szayel’s voice breaks at the end, actually breaks. There’s no arrogance left. There’s no assurances that perfection like him can fix any problem he’s faced with. There’s just a broken sort of despair that makes your chest clench up far too tightly. 

“I’m sorry.” It’s all you can think to say. You want to tell him that you’ve been trying to fix it. You want to assure him that it’ll be okay. 

But it’s not. There’s nothing okay left. Szayel moves to start wandering through the wreckage of everything he’s worked on for all this time, picking his way through the shambles of it all. He doesn’t try to pick anything up. He doesn’t try to fix anything. He just takes every bit of the mess in silently. 

“I’ve had enough.” When Szayel does speak, his tone makes your heart sink. He sounds like whatever heat he has is shattering. “This... this can be dealt with later. I don’t want to look at it anymore.”

“Okay. We’ll go back to your room then. You’re right. This can–” your voice cracks, “this c-can be dealt with later. When we’re ready.”

As soon as the door shuts behind you, Szayel collapses onto his bed. Forgoing all dignity, he buries his face in a pillow and curls up tight. You’d never have thought you’d see Szayel like this, so shattered inside that he’s not even trying to hold onto his pride. You sit down beside him, debating if placing a hand on his back would be safe. Debating if you could try to hug him like every instinct in  _ your  _ body is telling you you need to. 

You don’t say it’ll be okay. You both know it won’t be. There was something final about the way Szayel dismissed the mess. You have a feeling that he’s already come to a painful decision. 

Sitting next to Szayel, you can see the way his chest heaves up and down. You can see a tremble in his shoulders, in his limbs. There’s something wrong with it all, something about his breathing that’s just a little too sharp. You place what the problem is far more quickly than you’d like. 

Szayel, the sadistic mad scientist of the Arrancar, is crying.

. . . 

After that, it’s a slow descent into resignation. You get out and explore eventually, only to find that Las Noches has all but collapsed. There’s no one to be found; no Shinigami, but no Arrancar either. They may have left Las Noches behind. They might just be dead. More of the buildings, of the halls, are ruined than not. It’s becoming increasingly apparent that you and Szayel survived through miracle alone. 

You return to Szayel with the news, only to see the same look of despair-filled acceptance that you’re slowly, sickeningly getting used to. “As I expected,” he says, even though you get the feeling he didn’t expect any of this at all. You let him have it. Szayel needs to feel like himself. 

“What are we going to do?” you ask eventually, sitting across from Szayel on the bed. He’s up and moving, flipping through one of the books that’s supposed to be yours. “I don’t really know what our options are, but I don’t think we can stay here. I haven’t found anyone. We might be the only ones left alive. Or at least the only ones who’re here.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Szayel says, as if that kind of answer doesn’t make you sick. “You could leave me here. Go back home to your world and forget about this whole,” he gestures out towards his lab, “mess.”

“No, I most definitely could not,” you snap back, a little bit more anger slipping into your voice than you mean for it to.

“Then what do you have in mind? I certainly don’t have any ideas. Why, I’m still rather wishing you’d left me in the hallway to die.” 

You’re used to this by now. Szayel’s taken on a certain negativity over time, making constant comments about how he’d surely be better off dead or on the Shinigami’s dissection table instead of awake and suffering. It’s disturbing, but it’s also probably his way of coping. It’s kind of all he has at this point, considering that he hasn’t so much as tried to touch his lab. 

“Well... maybe I could take you home  _ with  _ me. I mean, there really isn’t anyone left here. No one would miss us if we just went to my world and stayed there. There’s no more Aizen to stop you.” You try to smile. You try to look like you’re doing something other than making a wild guess.

“...you want to take an  _ Arrancar _ back to your world with you?” Szayel asks incredulously. “You do know that creatures like myself aren’t meant for such peaceful living as your species enjoys, correct? I’d be sorely out of place among your kind.” And then, like a quiet afterthought. “I’m sure you’d get tired of coddling me eventually, anyway. There’s little point in wasting your efforts on something so broken.”

Oh. Well, that’s certainly an admission. One that makes your heart hurt a whole freaking lot, but an admission nonetheless. You never thought you’d hear Szayel refer to himself as something so imperfect as  _ broken.  _

“No, I really wouldn’t. And it’s not coddling. You’re important to me, so I’d be helping you. And I think you’d be fine. There’s not really any fighting left for you to do, so why not come somewhere where you don’t have to anymore? Where there’s no more killing and eating each other and everything else you’ve been through. You could just be with me. Just... just with me.” It’s all you know how to say. It’s everything you want to believe.

Szayel stares at you for a long moment, blinking slowly like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. He swallows, closes his eyes, then finally manages to speak. 

“You’re insane. Coming from  _ me,  _ you’re insane. But... I suppose you have a point. There’s not anything here for me anymore. My lab is finished. Too much...” The words sound forced out of him. “Too much has been destroyed. Recovering all of it would take years. I don’t have it in me to fix it anymore. There’s just no way I can go back.”

The misery in Szayel’s voice is palpable. You can’t imagine what it would be like to have to leave so much work behind. You can’t imagine what it would feel like to have to give up on all of it. For a few moments, you’re afraid you’re going to see tear-tracks all over again. 

“So,” he continues, “I can oblige your idea. I’m tired of fighting. If you really think it’s worth it to take care of me, I’ll go with you.”

Your jaw almost drops. Szayel.  _ Szayel  _ admitting that he needs–  _ wants–  _ to be taken care of. Agreeing to go to your world with you so easily. He really is done. He truly is giving up on it all. 

“We should go back soon, then. I don’t think staying in this place is good for either of us anymore.” You smile, more confident than you feel. “I’ll make sure you’re alright. There won’t be any more of any of this. Just somewhere you can rest for a while. For as long as you want, really. I’m sorry that everything’s fallen apart like it has... but I really am happy that I can do something to help. That I don’t have to leave you.”

Szayel leans back, breathing slowly in and out. You understand that he’s really not going to be the same. You know that this agreement kind of amounts to him giving up for good. 

“Then,” Szayel says, “let’s get going.”


End file.
